The Broken Pact

The wind shifted.

It carried the scent of fire — faint, distant, but unmistakable.

Caleb stood at the edge of the Blackridge cliffs, eyes narrowed toward the horizon. The sky above the northern pass was darker than it should've been. Storms didn't move that fast. Not natural ones.

The Crestmoore wolves were coming.

And they were bringing the old war with them.

⸻

Inside the Pack House, tension laced the air like electric thread.

Lena paced her room, clutching a worn leather book that Caleb had given her — a journal from one of his ancestors who'd once fought beside the First Howl. Her eyes scanned the faded ink, drinking in the stories of monsters and betrayal, of a curse passed through blood and fire.

She looked up at the boy — who was now resting near the hearth, fingers twitching in his sleep.

He still didn't have a name.

But they'd started calling him Ash.

It felt right.

Like something burned and reborn.

⸻

Caleb met with his council in the war room — again.

They were all growing tired. Fractured.

Ronan slammed his fist into the table. "We should send the boy away. If he's what they want—"

"No," Caleb growled. "He's a child. I won't hand him over to some ancient clan who believes they own him."

"He might want to go," Bex muttered. "We don't know what he remembers. Or what they've done to him before."

Elias spoke calmly, but firmly. "If the Hollow split itself between him and Lena, then separating them could make things worse."

"How much worse?" Marla asked.

Elias looked grim.

"Catastrophic. We're not just dealing with two vessels. We're dealing with a living curse that now exists in duality. Two halves of a fractured soul. If they're torn apart the wrong way—"

"—the Hollow may return in full," Caleb finished, jaw tight.

Silence followed.

Then, from the far end of the room, the shadows shifted.

And Malric stepped forward.

"I've seen this before," he said quietly. "A long time ago. Before Crestmoore fell."

⸻

All eyes turned to him.

"What do you mean?" Caleb asked.

Malric's gaze was distant, voice hollow with memory.

"The Hollow doesn't just destroy. It divides. It finds something broken in a bloodline — a grief, a betrayal, a weakness — and it festers there. Feeds on it. Crestmoore made a pact with it centuries ago, thinking they could use its power to protect their borders from humans."

Elias paled. "They invited it?"

"They thought they could contain it," Malric said. "They were wrong."

He stepped closer to the table, laying out a faded map — one with a region long lost to the wilderness. A valley called Vire Hollow.

"Their strongest seers created a bond — a 'Blood Vessel,' they called it. A child born every generation to carry a fraction of the Hollow's will, but under Crestmoore control."

"And Ash?" Caleb asked.

Malric nodded grimly. "He is the last of them."

⸻

That night, Ash awoke in a cold sweat.

He'd dreamed of the upside-down tree again.

Only this time, it had faces in its branches — not carved, but real. Trapped. Screaming.

He found Lena already awake, sitting beside the fire with the Voidglass dagger on her lap.

"You had the dream again," she said.

He nodded, shivering.

"I don't think we're just supposed to be vessels," Ash whispered. "I think we're keys."

Lena frowned. "Keys to what?"

"To opening the Hollow fully," he said, voice barely audible. "Together."

She stared at him.

Then made a decision.

"We need to find that tree."

⸻

At dawn, Lena and Ash were gone.

Caleb found her note on his desk.

Don't follow. We have to do this alone. If we're the ones the Hollow wants, then we'll find it first — and end it before Crestmoore can use us.

—L

Caleb crumpled the note in his fist.

"Damn it."

"They went to the Hollow Grove," Elias said, confirming it with the map. "The symbols align. That's where the tree must be. Where the curse was first sown."

"Then we go after them," Caleb snapped. "Now."

Malric shook his head. "You don't understand. That grove… it's alive. It's not just a place. It moves. Shifts. Only someone carrying the Hollow can find it."

"Which means," Bex said grimly, "only they can enter."

⸻

In the forest, Lena led Ash through the underbrush with more confidence than she should've had.

But she felt it — the Hollow's call. Like a magnet beneath her skin, drawing her toward something ancient and vast. The deeper they went, the quieter the world became.

No birds. No wind. Even the trees seemed to watch.

And then, around a bend of black-stone ridges, they found it.

The Tree.

It rose from the center of a clearing, roots curling up into the air, branches stretching down into the earth like veins. It pulsed faintly with reddish light. And around its base, bones littered the soil.

Ash stepped closer, drawn like a moth to flame.

"Don't touch it," Lena warned.

But he was already reaching.

The moment his fingers grazed the bark, the world cracked open.

⸻

A blast of energy knocked Lena backward, slamming her into a tree. She gasped, eyes flashing gold.

Ash hovered above the ground, suspended by threads of shadow — the Hollow tree wrapping tendrils around his body, absorbing him.

"No!" she screamed.

She grabbed the Voidglass blade and ran toward him.

The tree responded — shadows rising, twisting into faces — mocking, laughing.

"You can't cut the root without bleeding the fruit."

"One must be lost for the other to live."

"Shut up!" Lena roared, slashing at the tendrils.

Then she heard a voice inside her skull.

"Choose, vessel. Save the boy, and we return. Let him go, and we fade forever."

⸻

Caleb arrived at the Grove just in time to see Lena raise the blade — and hesitate.

Ash's body was flickering — a mix of shadow and starlight. The Hollow was taking him. But if she cut now, she could sever the link.

He took one step forward.

"Lena!" he shouted.

She turned, eyes wild. "I don't know what to do!"

Caleb locked eyes with her. "You do. Trust your instincts."

And for the first time in days, the Hollow fell silent.

Lena plunged the blade into the tree, not into Ash — and screamed as the roots screamed with her.

The air erupted in white fire.

⸻

When the smoke cleared, the Hollow Tree had cracked down the middle.

Ash lay unconscious, alive, the sigils on his skin faded.

Lena stood shaking, the Voidglass blade broken in half at her feet.

Caleb rushed to them, scooping Ash into his arms.

"It's over," Lena said, tears streaking her face.

But Caleb wasn't sure.

Because on the shattered bark of the tree… new runes were forming.

And they spelled a word that hadn't been spoken in generations.

"Alpha."